


Stripped and Vital

by deathwailart



Series: Dragon Knights [OLD] [12]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Confessions, Elves, F/M, High Fantasy, Knights - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompts bloodied knuckles + a comforting embrace</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stripped and Vital

She likes her raw, that rough and ready way of hers hidden beneath knightly manners where she speaks of duty and honour, carved into her bones so deeply that sometimes Ilea wonders if she'll feel the words against her fingers if she presses down hard enough. Ilea is older but she hasn't seen half as much as Tanis has; a sheltered life was hers before all this, no true hardships to it or at least not the same as those Tanis has dealt with.  
  
At least Tanis still has her people. Ilea is an outcast and here in the north it means she will be offered no aid until she throws herself before her parents' feet, submitting herself to their 'mercies'. She knows - she can guess - what her lot will be then. Shut away, married, not trusted until she has proven herself after centuries of being watched when Tanis is long dead.  
  
After she is ambushed when patrolling camp by a group of her own people she knows she will likely never be accepted.  
  
"Ilea?" She barely hears Oran's voice when she walks back to camp, somehow not faltering in her steps. Tanis looks up from sharpening her weapons and makes a noise in her throat but Ilea ignores that too, heading into the tent where she calmly removes her weapons and light armour. Her hands are raw from where she fought. Knuckles ragged and bloody still. Crack of bone under her fists that she still hears and feels and bile surges upwards. The tent opens but her heart roars in her ears, the world dead around her until strong arms pull her close, her sore hands carefully held between them.  
  
"I've never killed my own kind before," she hears herself say and wonders how Tanis feels when Tanis slays the few bandits they've come across. They can't be compared, too many differences in how they look at their people. Tanis tucks Ilea's head beneath her chin and holds her. It's later that Ilea realises how her throat hurts, her cheeks puffy and red with itching eyes, knuckles scabbed over.  
  
It hurts when she grabs hold of Tanis' shoulders. She holds onto that.


End file.
